So we watched another widow movie entitled Smart People with Dennis Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker, that girl from Juno and Thomas Haden Church. I really don’t know why I like widowed people movies so much – the comedy ones in particular. Perhaps it is because I equate my experience as a dramedy rather than a Lifetime Movie for Women. I had as many up and really surreal and satirical moments as I did sad grief-drenched ones.
Dennis Quaid is a socially bankrupt widower of many years who lives with his 17 year old daughter and his less successful younger brother – who he constantly reminds was adopted. He is a professor of literature at Carnegie Mellon. A pretty brilliant guy but a complete fuck to most people because he regards them as idiots – probably something that pre-dated his widowhood because widowhood doesn’t strip you of your personality and hand you a new one so much as it highlights the things that were already wrong with you.
Into his life enters a former student now a doctor, Sarah Jessica. I am always struck by how really plain and pointed her features are. She looks like a real person and not someone who would be the lead in a romantic comedy. She tries to penetrate the awfulness which is Quaid’s character and human him up a bit. She doesn’t succeed but through a series of incidents with her (he knocks her up on their second date – being a genius doesn’t mean you will get the condom on properly) and his children and brother, he changes.
And they marry, have twins and live happily ever after. That’s what I really like about widow movies. They live happily ever after. There is hope. There is promise. Is it reality? It was for me. It was for a lot of people I know. We are not aberrations so I like to think of these movies validating my world view.
So today, I would like to hear about your favorite type of movie.
anniegirl1138 
This one is easy for me–I am drawn to “widow” movies as well—DAN IN REAL LIFE is my favorite. I love Steve Carrel–so funny, yet so normal. More than anything I love the family dynamics in this movie.
M
PS–did you know you were tagged today–???
I did see it and it is a meme I have been meaning to do here. Thanks for the tag. It will be up Wednesday.
We watched that this weekend! Tim’s mother wanted to rent the Bucket List, but I had already netflixed Smart People. It didn’t go over well, as you can imagine, but I loved it. It’s right up my alley. I love dry humor movies. Have you seen Lars and the Real Girl? That’s my fav. and it’s kind of a widow movie.
Take care,
b
b! How nice to “see” you. I hope all is well with T and the boys. Thanks for the recommendation.
I’m with Daisy Fae here, quirky comedies. Especially love Mel Brooks comedies. I especially love City Slickers with Billy Crystal and Jack Palance.
I don’t go out to movies that much any more. I usually watch them as they come up on cable. I’m a huge fan of the Cohen brothers.
I like creepy.
Not gore. I can get teen slasher movies free on the Internet. I mean real horror, that invokes that emotion and keeps me edgy.
That’s what I’d like, anyway. I’ll watch others. And the “keep me guessing” part hasn’t happened since I was about 14. *Sigh*
I like quirky independent films about quirky families. Maybe because they reflect my experience, too. A couple of favorites:
“Cold Comfort Farm” … “Pieces of April” And I love quirky movies about personal transformation, like “Stranger than Fiction” … “Amelie” … “Enchanted April” — just for starters.
@daisyfae: Isn’t that the truth? Seems like we return more videos to the library unwatched than watched. To watch a video now usually means sacrificing sleep some night in order to do so. And there are certainly better things to sacrifice sleep for than watching videos!
As to movie types; nowadays I’m watching the same stuff that annie does. 🙂 But, in more recent times – say the last decade or so – my preference in films had moved away (far away) from most of the shite coming out of Hollywood to independent and foreign films.
There’s no specific genre though. I like movies that are thought provoking. Some example titles: “American Beauty”, “Run Lola Run”, Guy Ritchie’s “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” and “Snatch”, “The Boondock Saints”, “The Usual Suspects”, “Donnie Darko”, “12 Monkeys”, “Grosse Pointe Blank”, “Being John Malkovich”, … the list goes on. There are others, but any movie released through Lion’s Gate Films is worth consideration.
I also like history films as well, with a focus on World War II. So, films like “Braveheart”, “Saving Private Ryan”, “Midway”, “A Bridge Too Far”, and “Tora! Tora! Tora!” are on my favourites list also. (It’s fun to note the inaccuracies and license taken with the historical record in some of those old WWII films as well. – Yeah, I’m a geek.)
But as I said at the top, where I once had no trouble spending the time to watch films, now I have trouble finding or making the time for it.
This one’s easy: oddball, quirky comedies… Fargo, Airplane, Young Frankenstein, Raising Arizona, etc. Yep, most of these examples are ancient. i don’t seem to find much time for movies. for the past 10 years it seems…